‘So thankful for the entire city’: Officials celebrate opening of long-planned mosque in Rolling Meadows

Members of the Islamic Society of Northwest Suburbs are giving thanks this Ramadan that they now can perform prayers inside their new mosque — a project eight years in the making amid the pandemic, construction delays and local politics.

The society’s leaders invited Rolling Meadows city officials for a tour of the new prayer hall Friday, two weeks after the building earned a temporary certificate of occupancy once passing the city’s health, life and safety inspections.

City Manager Rob Sabo and Assistant City Manager Glen Cole delivered the certificate that day to Mohammed Abdul-Gaffoor, the society’s board president.

“Glen and Rob personally walked in with the permit because they recognized how important it was,” Abdul-Gaffoor said. “And they probably saw most of us tear up on that day.”

Friday’s tour was attended by those city administrators and current and past elected officials, including Mayor Lara Sanoica and former Mayor Joe Gallo, who society officials credit for helping shepherd approvals through the city council.

Abdul Javid, the society board’s vice president who lobbied city leaders for years, called Gallo “a strong supporter.”

The mosque, at 1200 Hicks Road, is virtually unrecognizable from the old brick industrial building it started out as.

The society purchased what was a vacant one-story, 47,534-square-foot factory — formerly the home of the L-3 Electrodynamics defense contractor — in 2016. But the city council rejected initial plans to convert the building into a mosque.

Two years later, with some newly elected and appointed aldermen, a new council agreed to rezone the property, allowing a religious use as a special use in what is the city's manufacturing district.

In August 2022 — four years to the date of the council approvals — the building’s transformation began.

The inside was gutted, bricks on the outside removed and replaced with a stone facade, and roof torn open to build a square platform on which to place the prominent central dome.

“To the outside community, they think we put up something from the ground up,” said Thabraize Ahmed, a board member and director of fundraising. “But when we tell them, ‘Oh no, it’s just a rehab,’ They’re like, ‘Wow.’ … It’s a new building, other than just the skeleton.”

The $5 million phase one — in about 20,000 square feet of the building — includes the main men’s and women’s prayer halls, three entrances, a kitchen and small conference room. Still to be installed is a large chandelier that will hang from the dome, two minarets at the main Hicks Road entrance, and other site work.

Officials say they’re now prioritizing and fundraising for future phases in the rest of the 40-year-old building, which could include a Sunday school, gym/wellness center and multipurpose hall.

For now, the society’s school and multipurpose space will remain down the block at 3950 Industrial Ave., where members have been meeting in a 15,000-square-foot building since 2005. The society formed in a 5,000-square-foot building at 3890 Industrial Ave. in 1986.

“We were so thankful for the entire city over the past several years. It has been nothing but a very strong collaboration and motivation to help see us in,” Abdul-Gaffoor said. “We are building the foundations for a much longer-term relationship with the city, and we expect to grow as the city also grows.”